Linear, 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional textile structures have found new uses beyond traditional apparel in recent years because of their unique combination of light weight, flexibility, permeability, and strength and toughness. Many of these applications including but not limited to medical, chemical separation, chemical protection require a broad range of fiber architecture, packing density, surface texture, porosity, total reactive surface areas and fiber tortuosity.
Some early work on fiber structures are discussed in an article by Frank K. Ko entitled Three Dimensional Fabrics for Composites, in Textile Structural Composites, Chou, T. W., and Ko, F. K., eds., Elsevier, 1989. Another discussion of the prior art is by Frank K. Ko entitled Preform Fiber Architecture for Ceramic Matrix Composites, Bull. Am. Cer. Soc. February, 1989.
A key element dictating the range of these physical characteristics is the fineness (diameter, linear density-denier) of the constituent fibers and the way these fibers are organized and oriented. For many years, the range of fiber fineness expressed in terms of fiber diameter are well above 2 .mu.m.
It would be of great advantage in the art if fibers of smaller diameter could be prepared for these applications. Another advantage would be if those smaller fibers could be made stronger.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a method of making fibers of much smaller diameter, in the range of what are known as nanofibrils.
Another object of this invention is to provide nanofibrils with adequate strength to permit their use in textile processing processes.
Other objects will appear hereinafter.